The clip, which was uploaded to You Tube yesterday, begins with the man prostrate on the floor. According to the man filming the footage, he has already been tased and maced in the face.

The victim asks the cop over and over again what he is being arrested for but the officer refuses to answer.

“Can you tell me what’s going on? You don’t have a warrant for my arrest,” the man pleads as he coughs as a result of being pepper sprayed.

At the 1:15 mark in the video, the cop kicks the man in the throat for no apparent reason.

The man is then handcuffed before the officer punches him in the head. He is then slammed onto a patrol car and held down as his hair is pulled back.

As officers struggle to put the man in the patrol car, other cops try to intimidate the man recording the video.

From the video it appears as if around ten police officers are involved in the arrest of one man.

Details surrounding the incident, which took place at the corner of Woodbridge and Milford streets, have now been released. The victim of the assault was named as 30-year-old Eric Hightower, who was arrested for terroristic threats, damage to property and obstruction of the legal process, but crucially has not been charged.

The officer responsible for the assault – Jesse Zilge – has been placed on administrative leave while the incident is investigated.

St. Paul Police Chief Tom Smith told CBS Minnesota that the department has “serious concerns” about the officer’s use of force in the video.

This footage again illustrates how police brutality has become endemic in America – particularly targeting black people.

Earlier this month we reported on the case of 21-year-old Chavis Carter, who Jonesboro Police claim shot himself in the head while handcuffed in the back of a patrol car.

Despite being placed in double-lock handcuffs and having been searched, police claim Carter took his own life with a .380 caliber handgun, an explanation the man’s mother claims is a cover-up for murder.

As police brutality in America escalates to new heights of violence and abuse, more and more unprovoked deaths are occurring, but punishments for officers who shoot victims dead are often miniscule.

In January 2009, 22-year-old Oscar Grant was shot in the back by policeman Johannes Mehserle as he lay on a platform at a railway station in Oakland California. Mehserle was charged with involuntary manslaughter after he claimed he had meant to use his Taser and not a gun and ended up serving just two years in jail for killing Grant.